Using GMail, is there a way to automatically add contacts from a vCard that has been emailed to me. I know that I can download it to my local system and import it from there, but I'm looking for a quicker, one-step, method.

There is an easyer way! if you go to http://memotoo.com and setup an account you can have your Outlook contacts synced using one of the provided applications to that service. They will then sync their server with Google and you get all of your contacts :)

So you can one-click to import the vCard into Outlook (or another app) and have them synced to MemoToo within a few minutes and into your Google contacts a few minutes after that.

This service also supports syncing your contacts from Facebook, LinkedIn and most other contact, calander online stores so you have a single point of truth that can sync with your phone, outlook and other services.